


The Battlefield is the Entrance to Hell

by ReduxCath



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Character Study, Homoeroticism, M/M, POV First Person, allusions to sex, cuz come on its war, sexual innuendo and symbolism, they have sex but its all artsy and shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:20:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReduxCath/pseuds/ReduxCath
Summary: Another war. Another day of blood. And Ares meets Thanatos under the light of the sun, once again.
Relationships: Aphrodite/Ares, Ares/Thanatos (Hades Video Game), but Aphrodite's only mentioned
Comments: 1
Kudos: 46





	The Battlefield is the Entrance to Hell

The man doesn’t register the spear that hits him between the eyes.

He falls, blood scattering. His comrade trembles with the sudden whirlwind of emotions. He is hurt—he is gone—he is dead—he was killed— _by that one._ The man knew what war was. The man understood it. A son of Sparta, he had trained and honed his skills, culling those too weak to handle his strength while sharpening those strong enough to withstand it. He had been told that he, as a Son of War, would take death to bed every day, and that he would make of her his eternal lover. His future wife and concubines would be second to Death, and to the gifts he would shower her with. He thought he’d understood…

He’d _thought_.

As he sees his comrade twitch and spasm as life seeps from his face, the man feels an unnatural rage overcome him. The corners of his vision turn red, his eyesight sharpens considerably, his body feels scalding hot, and the din of warfare quiets as he zeroes in on his killer.

Age.

Skin color.

Hair texture.

Everything is irrelevant as he charges, fast as thought, towards the man that killed his comrade. And with a guttural scream that comes from somewhere he does not know of, he plunges his blade through a chink in the armor, pushing it through, until his arms are gloved with hot, velvet red.

Using his whole body, he twists as he screams, and the blade scatters blood out as the offender falls. But all are offenders. All killed his kin. And he roars his roar that mixes with the sound of all others as he becomes a madman on the battlefield.

The blood spills.

Flies.

And becomes rose petals.

The world moves, slow, less like the wild rondo of war and more like a slow choreographed dance. The rose petals, dark and red, fly around gently as shining slabs of iron and steel fling them forth like wands. These are no casters, no mages—yet in this space, they appear as focused as those devoted to the thaumaturgies.

It is here where I stand.

Watching _him._

He works diligently. Methodical in his steps. Waving through the frenzied crowds, around and around he goes in no particular pattern. He seeks no single direction, nor destination. No, for he is Death, and he comes to reap the souls of men who die. And today is a day of battle, where red rose petals tinge the snow and tell a bloody tale of sacrifice, bravery, honor, and glory—all for him to snatch.

He goes where I hint. Where I point. Because by my command do the men move and slay one another.

And they are _gorgeous_ when they cry.

When they kill.

When their chiseled jawlines set in rage and grief as they fight for the things they care about.

I plant a kiss atop the lips of one man, and my blessing thrums within his chest and loins, red and shining. He moves, impassioned, and I lick my lips. A good husband, his wife is lucky. A good father to have borne such a brave boy back home.

“You stalk me again, War.” His voice comes as a sweet surprise. My teacher Death is suddenly next to me, and I turn to look at his pale face, his golden eyes that accentuate his frown. I cannot help the smile that blooms on my face. He is so close to me now. I could touch his hair if I wanted to.

But I am no brute. I speak when spoken to. Especially if it is my teacher. “Stalking?” For all that I am, I am also a gentleman. “Thanatos, this is my domain as much as it is yours.” The rose petals fly gently around us, and the man I have kissed is now far enough away that my blessing is set within him. There exist no one who could calm him down—no one save my daughter, perhaps. But she sleeps now. There shall be no Peace for these men. Not today. And so I cock an eyebrow to my teacher. It’s not every day I can have him so close. “I resent the accusation.” I tell him, failing to try and hide my joy at his presence.

Thanatos, my teacher Death, frowns deeper. “Your eyes have been glued to my back ever since the first young man cried out for his mother.” He did cry for her, didn’t he? Well, a dishonorable death, but those were plentiful. He had not been worthy of my blessing. And without my even needing to direct him, his killer made him see despair itself as he passed.

A man after my own heart, not even from my own city. _He_ got my blessing. Over, and over, and over again. After a while it had felt like the mortal champion was capable of sensing me and grabbing back at me. At one point, it had felt like we’d locked eyes, when he licked his lips and grinned at me as his body burned with my red flame.

But even he had fallen away.

As mortals should.

“But did you not enjoy the gifts I sent you?” For all mortals were beholden to my influence. To pride and rage and territorial emotion. To power—and men, to their masculinity. All of that served for me to do my job, and for me to talk with Death. “Master, I wove letters of my love to you in each and every parcel.”

“I saw.” He said, looking to the side at a corpse he had long-since touched. It had been stepped on quite a bit by now, but the wounds—my poems, my whispers written into flesh—were still bright red.

“And…?” I take a chance. My heart of gold beats fast within my chest as I take a step forward. Too brazen? But my passion precedes my reason and I brush a couple of rose petals from his hair. His hair has touched my fingers now. I am smitten over again.

He looks up at me. My fingers don’t even need to tilt my teacher’s head up, and in this vulnerable state I’ve placed myself in, they tremble just beneath his chin. I dearly hope he does not notice how unmanly this is, how my courage trembles before his gorgeous might. But then, I consider the words of my woman, of reciprocation and love and my head fills with fantasies of _us_ , understanding one another and— “I do not care for them.”

For a single moment, my power bursts through my skin, sorrow and rage and shock and _more_ sorrow. The men around us react, and suffer embolisms. Unnoticed by their brethren—but my teacher sighs silently and, with a dance that makes me fall in love with him over again, catches their souls and traps them in the dew on his blade.

Yes.

As he dances around me.

As he steps on the air and strips the men from their bodies.

As he _dances_ —for it _is_ the most beautiful dance—I fall in love again.

“Oh, Teacher.” I breathe. I stop myself short of taking him then and there, for I am a gentleman above all else.

He gives me a look and moves on.

And, like a dog in heat, like a young man after his maiden, I follow, breast alight.

“Surely after all this time, you must notice my feelings, Teacher.” I talk to him as he works, dancing around his dance, sometimes joining in and helping his scythe reach places that are just outside of his reach so he doesn’t have to strain himself. He lets me touch his gorgeous instrument, and my skin sings at the contact with the rod. The sound of the blade is unlike anything my weapons could make. I fall in love yet again.

After a couple more mortals are sucked into his blade, he answers. “I do. You are persistent and dedicated to presenting them to me time after time.” He _knows!_ He knows how I feel. I could kiss him. He makes eye contact with me and I almost let go of his scythe in my shock. He grabs it before it can hit the ground, and glares at me. I am a youth, in that instance, and sheepish in front of the one I wish to share affection with. I am young with him. “Careful with that.” He warns.

“Y-Yes sir.” He is the only one I will ever call sir. Even my Gracious Father—whom owns a number of platitudes from my lips—will never be graced by this word. But teacher Thanatos?

He need only ask, that I may kneel before his black robe.

I have trouble shaking the embarrassment from my heart. Time passes without us talking. More than I would like. But after a while I am back with my bravery, and sweep him off his feet. Our noses almost touch. _Oh, Heavens._ “Teacher, I have learned so much from your example. I only wish to be recognized.”

My teacher reaps two soldiers that have thrust their blades into one another’s stomachs at the same time, without even looking, and sets the hairs on my neck standing like cadets. “Ridiculous. An Olympian wanting recognition from one of my station.” He flips elegantly off of my arms, swirling rose petals under his blessed feet that never hit the ground.

Does he not see how Nike has delivered him complete victory over me? “Teacher, surely you are not so boorish as to separate our ranks between the Olympians and the Cthonics? Such a divide is nonsensical. We are all—”

“ _Gods?_ ”

The way he says what we are sends a rush through my ichor like nothing else.

He is unimpressed. “You say that, yet you thrive off of the divisions of mortals.”

I let out a deep laugh. Spin with him in the air. “But teacher, I rule over war and might. That these mortals create cities and states is not _my own_ design.”

“Part of it is.”

I almost sing when he holds my flank. “But only a part.”

He is Death, the final sleep. While his brother Hypnos may play with humans, toy with them and laugh along as they awake from another day, he is direct. He touches them only once—unless they are blessed or cursed. And his work is vital to the maintenance of the natural order, for if man was allowed to breed without limit, he would overrun the earth. This was a fact known to all. Man, beast—all needed to flow.

So he has to understand, surely.

He is my teacher.

My gorgeous teacher, who works single-mindedly and who has a near-perfect record (only one man had been able to best him, and only for a time). _My_ teacher who swims and flies and runs across the fields and takes man when his time comes—without hesitation. Without fear. _My_ teacher, whose example gave me the power to tap into my courage and become the very God of War.

My teacher, whose honey-colored eyes look at me in that way as he looks down at one of the men with a spear through his face. Long-since taken, of course. “Without your enterprise, these men would grow too tall, and would challenge the Gods themselves.” He _knows_. My teacher knows after all. He understands what I do, and why it matters.

_He understands that I matter._

But despite war being the majority of what I am, it is not _all_ that I am. My woman understands that, understood it before anyone else did. And, perhaps… “That is true, teacher. Without war, they would grow like weeds.” My trembling hand rises to his cheek, his still hand caresses my sanguine cutlass. “But my enterprise also makes them into what they are.”

I am he who inspires rage and pride, identity and courage. While _others_ may encourage the mortals to don masks and learn to toy with one another, I pull them off. Long before the witch Circe deigned to turn men into lions, sheep, and pigs, _I_ had mastered the art as the highest mage. And while my Uncle may have the riches of the earth under his command, I reveal the riches of the heart, and the quality of the men that worship my family and I.

I pass the edge of my lip across my teacher’s cheek as I move to blow on the edge of his blade, scattering the souls like dandelion seeds so that they may reach Chiron at the edge of the nearby river. “I am the monster that these mortals seek to kill. Yet they never shall.” My eyes meet my teacher’s once more. “I learned how to use the shadows from you too, after all.”

“Self-appointed students are so troublesome.” He says—

And thunder fills me.

Thunder, brighter than anything Father could hope to produce.

Thunder that has only ever touched me once before.

I seize it like I seize all that come to me. All my conquests, willing, ready for me. He too follows this pattern, and we take one another then and there, surrounded by liquid rose petals, our throes drowned out by the song of men protecting what is theirs. Futile or not, useless or not.

Their wives and children _will_ grieve.

But only _after_ we reach completion.

And I make sure to push my teacher to that point over, and over, and over, and over again.

As he does to me.

I cannot keep up.

Utterly spent of both spirit and passion, I collapse atop the red earth, panting. “This…must mean you are my teacher, even here.” I breathe, heart racing in the afterglow. The flower of joy blooming within my heart.

My teacher Death stands above me. His job has been done for today. The two armies have declared a ceasefire, and their generals are coming to talk. I have some time before they go into their war tent to discuss matters, before my daughter possibly joins. Whether or not she appears, I know others will be here, presiding over the discussion.

As such, I rise from the earth, and with a flick of my wrist, am perfectly presentable.

“Thank you, teacher.” I breathe, looking after him, wishing to hold him in my arms once—

But he is gone.

And I am alone among our red-inked love letters.

Whether this conflict ends with my daughter having the final say or not, I breathe easy.

After all, I will meet my teacher again.

I will _always_ meet my teacher.

“Ares.” I tilt my head back. Athena frowns at me, utterly displeased, for she is observant enough to know of what I’ve just done. “Our men are about to negotiate.”

“Coming.” I say, and smile at her, relishing the chill that goes up her spine.

She will never know what I know. Or love what I love.

I walk past her, head held high, ignoring the way she looks at me.

Someone like her, a ghost of rules and regulations, could never understand.


End file.
